Why Anakin is No Longer Allowed to Mentor

10. Sith Shrines and Force Ghosts

Anakin barely hid the scowl on his face.

"Remind me again why we're traipsing through what has to be centuries of sewage?"

"Statement: because you didn't want to alert the Jedi Council you knew about the shrine and wanted to find the back door yourself, and this is the lower levels," said HK without any remorse.

If Padme was willing to kiss him after this, she was a true saint. He was thanking any deity he could think of that his nose had clogged up after the first fifteen minutes.

Did not mean he appreciated the stink and who-knows-what that he was currently slogging his way through.

Suddenly his flesh hand touched something on the wall that didn't feel like the surrounding area.

He lit up the wall a bit better...sure enough, the construction was different. Anakin perked up, and looked a bit further in. He had no idea where he was, but he fully planned to clean the path next time he came through if this was what he hoped it was.

Finding a depression in the wall, Anakin tried to push it inwards. When it refused to move, he used the Force.

There was a click, and the door slid open. Immediately, Anakin could feel the difference in the air.

No wonder the Jedi Council sealed the place off from inside the temple. The very feel of the place would be anathema to them.

Anakin, however, decided to fall back into the dark glee he got whenever he pissed off the council with one of his rumors. Particularly whenever he royally angered Mace Windy with the chaos he caused for shits and giggles.

The dark, oppressive air dropped instantly, almost as if it were unsure of the aura Anakin was projecting. He walked forward, and rather than feel the dark side of the force, he felt something he had come to call the 'chaos side' instead.

He could work with this.

~

Anakin stared at the force ghost. The force ghost kept going back between Anakin and for some reason, HK-47.

"You have my droid. And he seems to like you," said the ghost, openly confused.

Wait...his droid?

Anakin grinned.

"You're Master Revan, aren't you?"

"I am. What do you want in this place?"

"Honestly? I want to piss off the Jedi and the Sith at the same time," said Anakin without hesitation.

"...What?"

Anakin happily explained the situation. Revan looked at him incredulously.

"How is a Sith Shrine going to piss off both sides at once?"

Anakin noticed he wasn't trying to talk him out of it, and took it as a win.

"Simple. I plan to loot the temple discreetly from under the Jedi's noses and store it here temporarily. And when the Sith enact whatever grand plan they have for the Jedi, they'll never suspect that I've hidden the Jedi's knowledge and weapons here as well as slipped the remaining padawans in the temple out through this shrine. Only a select few even know about this place, much less the back entrance," explained Anakin enthusiastically. "Naturally, since whatever plan they have in place will wipe out the majority of the Knights and Masters, only a select handful will be in place to complete their training. And who better than the one who rescued them in the first place?"

"No, I get that. What I don't get is why you're almost entirely unaffected by the shrine's dark influence," clarified Revan.

"Oh, it's because I've been openly screwing with the Jedi and the Padawans by spreading rumors that allow them to actually embrace their emotions and darker desires without turning them into Sith. I've begun calling it the chaos side of the Force, because it's neither light nor dark, but a hybrid of both."

As near as he could figure, Anakin had stumbled across an until now unknown side of the Force. It was neither that of the Jedi or the Sith, but an unusual hybrid of both.

Considering he had never fit in as a proper Jedi, and being a Sith sounded like too much work for no real payout beyond being feared, Anakin decided he'd rather side with chaos instead.

Screwing with people was entirely too much fun to stop for what others considered real work.

Revan gave him a very odd look. However, HK-47 liked him (which was unusual enough) and he was like no other Jedi he had encountered before.

So he lead Anakin to the inner sanctum of the shrine...and explained the reason why it had been sealed off by the temple.

"Wait, so the Jedi used to purify dark items here, before they got it into their heads that it wasn't working? And it never occurred to them that maybe they were simply going about it wrong?" said Anakin incredulously.

Honestly, he had seen some stupid ideas put into place, but this collection of Sith artefacts in the temple took the cake. Why hadn't they simply stored it in the shrine where the younglings would never get near it?

No wonder Dooku had turned evil.

Still, at least Anakin had a place to take the younglings and padawans if the temple was attacked like he believed.

There was one thing though...

"Please tell me you know another way out that doesn't involve that damn sewer," said Anakin, practically pleading.

Revan was entirely unsympathetic.

"Find it yourself. The Jedi closed off most of the entrances millennia ago, and they only left that one alone because the room it went into was damaged and reeked," said Revan.

Anakin cursed...and mentally prepared himself for a long week of clearing out a proper path once he found another entrance into the temple via the shrine.